This invention relates to improvements in a device for testing pasta appertaining particularly to a device for quickly and easily determining the precise degree of hydration of pasta during the cooking operation.
Over a long period of time pasta foods have been in use in many parts of the world. Mounting interest in the possibility of using pasta as a vehicle for improving nutrition has created a need for a better understanding of the role of the constituents. For this reason, organizations such as the Grain Research Laboratory, Food Research Institute, U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations have been assessing tests on the chemical, physical and sensory properties of pasta for some years. Therefore there is a recognized need to improve both the nutritional and eating quality of pasta.
The wide acceptability of pasta products for domestic and institutional use depends on several quality factors such as colour, finish and cooking properties, and on cooked pasta texture (eating quality). Of the various kinds or shapes of pasta comprising such forms as vermicilli, spaghetti, macaroni, noodles, etc., spaghetti is considered the preferred test material being considerably more sensitive than macaroni. Spaghetti is also the preferred form of pasta products in North America and Europe.
The importance of proper cooking of pasta has led to various methods of testing the cooked product from sensory to instrumental, e.g. A mercury-loaded plunger was timed to compress a sample and its tenderness score was based on time the weight needed to break the sample. An instrument was marketed to conduct tensile tests on cooked spaghetti. The apparatus was used to measure elasticity flow, rupture and relaxation properties of noodles. A bite test employing a loaded cutting edge with its penetration being recorded electronically has also been used.
Statistics show primary consumer reaction is based on shearing resistance perceived on the first bite and since scientific research has shown that shearing resistance is related to the extend to which the pasta has been cooked (or hydrated), it is very important to know and be able to measure the cooking time or that time it takes for pasta to hydrate in boiling water especially if one wishes to have reproducible results. Studies have also shown that the cooking rate of pasta may be followed with great precision using the "Braibanti" technique.
The optimum cooking time according to the "Braibanti" technique calls for extracting a strand of pasta as the cooking progresses and squeezing the same between two flat transparent plates hinged together at one edge and regarding the compressed core. As the spaghetti approaches the optimum cooking time, a thin white line representing the core of the slick running down the centre of the flattened mass indicates moisture pentration and that the starch, except in this core, is partially or completely gelatinized. (It is assumed that this simulates the common squeeze test used in cooking by the consumer.) For this purpose, "Braibanti Pincers" have long been available but certain deficiencies have negated their general adoption; namely the difficulty of extracting a strand of hot, partly cooked spaghetti from the cooking utensil and placing it transversely on the lower plate, the inclination of the strand to slip longitudinally off the side of the plate and the tendency of the soft slippery strand to slide along the plate and off the end as the hinged plates are closed.